"If you're gay, lesbian, or bisexual, would you sacrifice for your trans neighbors and siblings? If you're trans, would you sacrifice for your gay, lesbian, or bisexual neighbors and siblings? It's something worth knowing about yourself and those around you." --Autumn Sandeen, 4/19/2010, the night before GetEQUAL's DADT repeal protest at the White House
Public Calendar
Press/media, organizations, and individuals send your time-based event info to: calendar@phblend.net
The Christian Civic League of Maine's Mike Hein calls Pam's House Blend: "a leading source of radical homosexual propaganda, anti-Christian bigotry, and radical transgender advocacy."
He is "praying that Pam Spaulding will "turn away from her wicked and sinful promotion of homosexual behavior."
(CCLM's web site, 10/15/07)
Ex-gay "Christian" activist James Hartline on Pam:
"I have been mocked over and over again by ungodly and unprincipled anti-christian lesbians."
(from "Six Years In Sodom: From The Journal Of James Hartline," 9/4/2006, written from the "homosexual stronghold" of Hillcrest in San Diego).
"Pam is a 'twisted lesbian sister' and an 'embittered lesbian' of the 'self-imposed gutteral experiences of the gay ghetto.'" -- 9/5/2008
Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth Against Homosexuality heartily endorses the Blend, calling Pam:
A "vicious anti-Christian lesbian activist." (Concerned Women for America's radio show [9:15], 1/25/07)
"A nutty lesbian blogger." (MassResistance radio show [16:25], 2/3/07)
Pam's House Blend always seems to find these sick f*cks. The area of the country she is in? The home state of her wife? I know, they are everywhere. Pam just does such a great job of bringing them out into the light.
--Impeach Bush
who monitors yours Bevis ?? Just thought I would drop you a line,so the rest of your life is not wasted.
Charlene Strong's wife Kate drowned when a flash flood inundated their Seattle home in 2004. This was pre-domestic partnerships, and the hospital and later the funeral home refused to recognize Charlene as Kate's partner or wife.
Out of the ashes an activist was born. Charlene has since released the documentary "for my wife..." about her experiences after being approached by film makers L.D. Thompson and David Rothmiller of trick dog films. Remember Referendum 71? Charlene's story played a key roll in defending Washington's domestic partnership law against referendum repeal last year when she lent her face and story to the Approve 71 campaign. What's less well known is that Charlene has also worked with hospitals and health care agencies to find solutions to the problem of family recognition.
Before President Obama's Pride speech in June, Charlene met with the President at the White House, a meeting set up by Rahm Emanuel after he heard Charlene's Story. Below is a snippet of an interview she did with Joe Mirabella shortly after Mr. Obama's speech.
I spoke with Charlene shortly after her meeting with the President. She was incredibly impressed by her visit with Obama, "I looked the President in the eye and could tell he was sincere. I'm not one to be star struck, so I wasn't just caught up in the moment," Charlene said, "This man means what he says and understands how important it is to move quickly."
Charlene was equally serious, "You can tell anyone that does not believe Obama is our ally to call me personally. I will tell them what's up. He is on our side."
"They were taking notes, they were listening, they were engaged," Charlene explained.
Coming from anyone else, I would be suspicious. But I know Charlene and I know her style. She is not one to repeat talking points or spin. She is as sincere as it gets. If Charlene believes the President "gets it", then I do too.
Shortly thereafter I also had the opportunity to interview Charlene. I was interested in following up on her opinion that the President "gets it" and that real progress is being made. I'm still interested in that opinion. But as I reviewed the transcript I realized that the bigger picture is this: here is a woman invited to Washington, D.C. for what some will call window dressing who seized the opportunity to move our message farther and higher. She didn't just go to the White House reception then call it a day. Not at all. In fact she used the opportunity to set up meetings with Health and Human Services Secretary Sibelius, Senator Patty Murray and Rep. Jim McDermott. She also met with the President of the SEIU, Mary Kay Henry, and with the National Education Association. Then she screened her film to a sold-out DC crowd.
I wonder, how many of us consider going beyond contacting our legislators and work to address LGBT-related issues by meeting with agency personnel, even in our home states? Charlene's story is particularly powerful, but we all have a story to tell. How many of us take the power of our own story to our school board representative or pharmacy board or primary caucus?
It's not that the question over Obama's sincerity isn't important, it's just that no matter one's opinion on that score the fact is that the work of telling our stories must continue on all levels. Whether or not Charlene Strong has the right read on Obama, the fact is she was there and used his invitation to take our message farther and higher. I recently came across a remark by Nikolai Alekseev, which goes: [T]o make the future requires action today. It seemed a fitting introduction for our interview, which you'll find below the fold.
Peter LaBarbera's phony "Truth Academy" is going to be held this week. It will interesting to see who will be attending. It will be even more interesting to see how the protest by The Chicago Gay Liberation Network (GLN) will play into the proceedings.
Naturally, the American Family Association's One News Now is allowing LaBarbera to cast his collection of mess as some sort of accurate and moral event.
But I also found something else extremely fascinating and highly unusual. The One News Now article made it a point to fairly give the GLN's position on the situation:
"We're giving free scholarships to young people because we know that, let's face it, young people in America are brainwashed in favor of the gay rights movement," the AFTAH (LaBarbera) founder laments.
Some pro-homosexual groups are already showing opposition to the Truth Academy, claiming that its teachings are hateful "bigotry."
"The Chicago Gay Liberation Network (GLN) has already announced it's going to protest the truth academy," LaBarbera reports.
That is the same group that celebrated the firing of a University of Illinois professor who taught the Catholic view against homosexuality. In reference to AFTAH's efforts, GLN's website contends that "youth should not be taught to hate their peers and thus fuel the cycle of self-loathing, depression and suicide which too many LGBTQ youth experience. Bigotry must be vocally and publicly opposed, especially when haters try to recruit young people."
The conservative leader, however, feels that defending biblical truths and the natural family is not "hate," and he suspects that some of the opposition might be because of the lineup of nationally known speakers the academy has invited to speak.
Let's take a look at these speakers. They include:
Cliff Kincaid- a man whose organization(Accuracy in Media), when not having to apologize for inaccurately labeling a gay Obama official (Kevin Jennings) as a pedophile, is busy defending a Ugandan law which penalizes people - with imprisonment and death- simply for being gay.
It's an open thread! Pleeeeease feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread...
It's been about two weeks since my last This & That diary, so this is what my cartoon sockpuppet Bookworm Bob have been looking at since that last posting.
In the scandal involving the theft and release of classified military information that could cost the lives of U.S. military personnel, the British Telegraph newspaper is reporting that the American soldier at the center of the scandal was "openly homosexual" and apparently held a grudge against the U.S. because of the military's anti-gay policy.
In another bizarre twist, reliable reports suggest that Private First Class Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army Intelligence analyst accused of leaking the classified information to the WikiLeaks.org website, was not only a homosexual but was considering a sex change. Manning was arrested at the end of May and is being detained by U.S. authorities.
...The revelations of Manning's openly pro-homosexual conduct suggest that a more liberal Department of Defense policy, in deference to the wishes of the Commander-in-Chief, had already been in effect and has now backfired in a big way. The result could be not only the loss of the lives of U.S. soldiers, as a result of the enemy understanding U.S. intelligence sources and methods, but damaged relations with Afghanistan and Pakistan and a possible U.S. military defeat in the region as a whole.
So what is Mr. Kincaid's conclusion here?
...[T]he Manning scandal provides ammunition to those who want to maintain the exclusion of homosexuals from the military. It proves in dramatic terms that homosexuals with gender identity disorders are potentially unstable and that their strange sexual preferences can subvert the military mission and cost lives.
Geez, no argument by generalization going on in Mr. Kincaid's piece, eh? Even making the assumption that Private First Class Bradley Manning was unstable and gay, as well as assuming he was the one who leaked the documents, that doesn't by extension mean that all gay servicemembers are unstable and therefore would release classified documents. His broadly drawn conclusion from one alleged instance is ludicrous at the face -- it's plainly a fallacious conclusion by the fallacious argument by generalization.
• Los Angeles Times' Flap Over 'Execution' Of Canada Geese Goes National; In New York and elsewhere, the geese are killed as nuisances and dangers to aircraft, but a growing legion of fans is crying foul:
They have their own Facebook page, where fans post photographs of them in their best light. They have loyal lawmakers who defend them against critics who say they are messy, noisy and menacing neighbors. Until recently, they had a lakefront home in one of New York's most desirable areas.
But the Canada geese living in Brooklyn's Prospect Park also had the bad luck to fall on the losing side of a battle sparked by the drama of Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III. His safe landing of a US Airways jet in the Hudson River after geese flew into its engines last year made him America's newest hero and turned the ubiquitous, black-eyed birds into every flier's nightmare.
On a warm July morning along the shores of Prospect Park's placid lake, federal wildlife officials rounded up hundreds of Canada geese and took them away to be gassed to death. Feathery tufts and plastic strips used to bind the birds were all that remained.
It was one of several mass goose killings nationwide this summer by the Department of Agriculture in response to local concerns about everything from airline safety to piles of dung. Timed to coincide with the annual molting season - when the birds shed old feathers and are unable to fly - the killings are part of an effort to cull Canada geese, which bordered on extinction in the early 1900s but now number in the millions in the United States.
SAN FRANCISCO - Gays, lesbians and their supporters marched in front of the federal building to put pressure on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to protect gay rights in the workplace.
"We are in the gayest city in the world. Our representative in Congress is trying to kill this bill by not putting it out on a vote. Pelosi has promised a lot and so we're expecting her to fulfill her promises," said gay rights advocate Reverend Israel Alvaran.
The protesters are calling for the passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act or ENDA.
In 29 states, it is still legal to fire someone because they are gay, lesbian or bisexual. In 38 states, it is legal to fire someone solely for being transgender.
ENDA would outlaw discrimination on both sexual orientation and gender identity.
But ENDA has not been put on the agenda for Senate floor action for the next few weeks before the August 9 recess.
Gayest city in the world?!?! Okay, after reading that line, I almost forgot how angry I am at Democrats in the House and Senate for taking no action on a fully inclusive ENDA this year.
Cincinnati police say a speeding driver tried to flee arrest while obeying red lights. Police said a 26-year-old woman was going 78 mph in a 55 mph zone early Friday on Interstate 75 when an officer tried to pull her over. Police said she exited the highway to drive home.
Police say that when the woman reached local streets, she drove the speed limit and stopped at red lights. They used sticks that punctured her tires, just yards from her home.
The findings in a nutshell: Your chance of eating tainted food at a sports stadium was worse than 50-50 at 28% of the sports venues where health inspectors discovered the majority of food vendors had "major" or "critical" health violations, ranging from evidence of rats to cooking at temperatures that weren't hot enough to kill bacteria. ESPN's frightening (but fabulous) interactive map, shows that the most dangerous stadiums for food are concentrated in Florida, where seven of eight stadiums reported health violations at between 75% and 100% of the vendors operating in those stadiums.
Thanks to ESPN, savvy fans can check the potential toxicity of their food before they pay $5 for ball park hot dogs that might make you sick. Checking before you go to the game would be wise, added Chris Waldrop, director of the Food Policy Institute at Consumer Federation of America, because you're a captive audience once you get there. Stadiums usually don't allow fans to bring in their own food.
I think I was happier not knowing the hot dogs at stadiums have a 50/50 chance of being cooked by a vendor with health code violations.
So anywho...It's an open thread! What are you thinking about today, or what books or articles have you been reading the past few days? Wanna share?
And again, please feel free to chat, blogwhore, and link-share in the comment thread because...it's an open thread! Woo-hoo!
And I don't mean the usual malicious homophobic, transphobic and anti-family fake Christian rhetoric we're used to hearing from him. According to Google, Gary Randall's website downloaded malicious software without user consent when they tested his pages. You get the same message when you navigate to his website and his blog.
In his email and blog post from July 23rd Randall said he was going to take a few days off and not publish blog posts July 26-30. However, he reassured readers that
The work of our office will continue as usual...our office will continue to moderate your comments on existing blogs.
I guess he was winking at his cat when he promised that "office work" including blog moderation would continue while he was away.
For those wishing to witness Randall's own brand of verbal malware before he gets around to disinfecting his malicious website, I've reprinted a small selection of his latest hits below the fold.
Coffeehouse regulars are well aware of the answer to this question -- the Defense of Marriage Act.
Under the law, also known as DOMA, no state (or other political subdivision within the United States) needs to treat as a marriage a same-sex relationship considered a marriage in another state (DOMA, Section 2); the federal government defines marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman (DOMA, Section 3).
The bill was passed by Congress by a vote of 85-14 in the Senate[1] and a vote of 342-67 in the House of Representatives,[2] and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on September 21, 1996.
And as a result of this disgusting law, states began passing marriage amendments.
As of April 2009, 29 states have enacted constitutional amendments defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman, and another 13 states have statutory bans, including Maine, which approved a same-sex marriage law that was repealed by referendum in the United States general elections, 2009.[38]
Kate and I married on July 1, 2004 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. At that time it was the only place we could legally marry in North America. Today, our marriage is recognized in a few states -- Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Washington, D.C.; the Coquille Indian Tribe in Oregon also grants same-sex marriage. New York, Rhode Island, and Maryland recognizes same-sex marriages, but they are not granted.
And then of course, you have the perversion of separate-allegedly-equal civil unions and domestic partnerships, which in theory gives couples (from the perspective of state government) equal legal recognition.
DOMA is clearly unconstitutional from a common sense perspective -- there is no sane justification for the fact that when Kate and I get on a plane and fly to New York that we're married, and when we return to North Carolina we're not. My state fortunately has not passed a marriage amendment; it does have a state DOMA to ensure our union is not recognized.
Yet my state-issued drivers license is valid in all 50 states. What's the difference? It's really that simple - we're talking about the culture of marriage, the heterosupremacy, the church/state conflation of marriage. It does NOT help that in the White House sits a president who is a constitutional scholar bleating that "God is in the mix" and that marriage is between a man and a woman. I really don't care about the political "safety" about this position at this date and time. It's an absurd position that only underscore what we've seen occur over and over -- the LGBT community is tossed overboard when it comes to civil rights. The stated positions of this administration always default to pandering toward the bigots, even when those positions fly in the face of common sense. It's quite sad.
What's enraging is the Obama administration's attack on my marriage by using spurious excuses to defend DOMA through the Department of Justice. No one in the administration is willing to answer direct questions about DOMA (and DADT for that matter) related to their constitutionality. For instance, take a look at this exchange between The Advocate's Kerry Eleveld and Press Secretary Robert Gibbs:
The Advocate: A growing number of people have started to call on the administration not to defend what the president refers to as the "so-called" Defense of Marriage Act - including Steve Hildebrand last week and the Human Rights Campaign, which is the largest LGBT community lobby and, quite frankly, it's usually fairly favorable toward the administration, so it was a turnaround for them to call on the administration not to defend that law.
The president has called DOMA discriminatory. Does the president believe that a discriminatory law is constitutional?
Robert Gibbs: I don't... the president hasn't to the best of my... I have not heard the president intone what he believes the constitutionality of the law is. I know that he believes the law should be changed.
Legal decisions around next steps in that case, I believe, will be made at the Justice Department and I would point you over there to them.
Again, the president believes, in this case, and the president believes in the case of "don't ask, don't tell" that those are laws that he has believed for quite some time should be changed.
What kind of answer is that? Reading between the lines, the clear message here is that the administration intends to tap dance around a clear answer until it is forced to by the string of legal cases winding their way to SCOTUS. It's an embarrassing strategy quite frankly, but as we've come to see, this is not an administration we can call a "fierce advocate" based on actions. It talks a good game, but when you have Steve Hildebrand and HRC calling 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue out, this administration is really running out of tap dance time. Hildebrand to Eleveld:
Is there anything you're disappointed with that you've communicated to the administration? I'm very perplexed on the administration's continued defense of DOMA in the courts. The Justice Department is not required to defend laws passed by Congress -- they have a history of doing it but it's not a requirement. Their ultimate duty is to defend the Constitution of the United States and if Congress passes a law that is discriminatory and doesn't pass muster of constitutionality, the Justice Department in my opinion should not defend those laws. In fact, they should find ways to make sure that those laws are stricken down by the courts.
I'd like to see the president and Attorney General Holder announce that they will no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act and to agree with the judge's findings in the Massachusetts' court case.
Meanwhile, as we are up in Maine doing a late celebration of our sixth anniversary, our marriage remains a tattered patchwork of civil rights and obligations in this country, and zero rights in our home state.
Our legislators are behind the times when it comes to cultural change on marriage. We live in North Carolina and have not experienced discrimination when introduced as a married couple. Most of the time we're asked where we got married and whether it is legal -- that is, of course, an ice breaker and opportunity to educate people about the fact that we may be married, civil unioned, domestic partners or strangers in the eyes of the law depending on what state we are in. People are usually perplexed, and even in a state with a good level of cultural conservatism, it's hard to dismiss us as unworthy of rights when it's a one-to-one conversation with a same-sex couple willing to speak about the issue.
What will it take for our "advocates" to grow a political spine? The religious bigots will be on the wrong side of history. We know this. The White House knows this. Congress knows this. The cultural change is bubbling up by more married same-sex couples who are out and willing to talk about their love, commitment, respect and desire for the same rights and responsibilities as any opposite-sex couple. Yet they have to also speak about their marriages being dismissed by the "most LGBT friendly administration ever" as less-than because of its own cowardice and political homophobia.
A little over a year ago, I went in for my last annual mammogram, so this past week I went in for this year's mammogram.
This time, instead of having to be sent out to the Naval Medical Center San Diego because the VA San Diego Medical Center's Radiology Department wasn't trained and accredited as yet, the VA San Diego Medical Center could accomplish my mammogram.
Well, I'm a little dense.
Seriously, after switching from Premarin to Transdermal Estradiol Hormone Patches a couple of years ago, by breast tissue became denser -- so my breasts are a little dense. That meant repeated scans of my breasts at first, and then meant the doctor decided she wanted ultrasound images
What I said about staff regarding my last mammogram was just as true this time:
My mammogram went just fine, thank you. Even though I'm a kind and smile-filed person, I'm always prepared to deal with inappropriate comments or behavior from the government employed healthcare providers -- always ready to ask why their bigotry is getting in the way of treating a veteran with respect to their service. Yet, I've never had even one treat me with anything but the purest of professionalism -- I've never had to challenge anyone on their bigoted speech or behavior because I just haven't experienced it.
That I've never had to fight against those who serve active duty service members and veterans -- in fact never had anything but positive comments about them -- actually makes me a bit proud of those VA and of those Navy Medical Center, San Diego employees. Here in my city, these wonderful folk serve all active duty servicemembers and retired veterans with honor, respect, and professionalism.
Frankly, I take it for granted these days that I'll be treated with dignity and respect at my VA Medical Center. If I weren't treated well, I'd very likely pounce on staff and talk to supervisors until I was satisfied -- but that hasn't my experience at the VA.
But as trans people know, this isn't always the case when one goes in for medical care -- we're often treated badly by medical staff. And, bad treatement of trans people in healthcare settings is much more common than most people know. It's an issue, no doubt, that I'll be writing about soon.
Here's her reason for not joining the boycott (I haven't heard whether Elton John made a statement regarding his decision to hold a concert in Arizona).
"Do you really think these dumb f*cking pop stars are going to destroy the economy of AZ?" She goes on to tell people to demonstrate and be active and praises the contribution immigrants have made to the country.
U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton received hundreds of threats at her court offices within hours of her ruling last week on Arizona's tough and controversial immigration law.
"She has been inundated," said U.S. Marshal David Gonzales, indicating his agents are taking some seriously. "About 99.9 percent of the inappropriate comments are people venting. They are exercising their First Amendment rights, and a lot of it is perverted. But it's that 0.1 percent that goes over the line that we are taking extra seriously."
...The increase in threats coincides with more online use and the proliferation of blogs, he said. A quick scan shows many sites and discussion forums where Bolton is called a traitor or other, unprintable names.
"She's tough as nails. She takes this as all part of her job," Gonzales said.
As a heterosexual living in Brazil, I'd like to note some of the differences I've observed in terms of how gays are treated in the US and in Brazil. Maybe some who now live in the US will decide to visit Brazil and perhaps even retire here.
1). On October 10, 2010, the city of Rio de Janeiro will host the largest annual gay pride parade.
The 2010 Rio Gay Pride Parade expects 2 million people for its 15th edition on October 10th. Spring temperature on the 80's, packed beaches and low prices for airfare and hotels, make it the right time to visit the Cidade Maravilhosa. Learn more about the Parade and its history.
The Gay Pride Parade has become a tourist attraction for visitors, gay and straight, from all over the world.
2). Here in the small northeastern Brazilian city where I live, cross-dressing is more common and more accepted, and this is true comparatively throughout Brazil. In the city where I live, the largest dance club uses marching bands in tourist areas to publicize events at the club. Their marching band is always headed by a gay drag queen who is also a major attraction at the dance club itself. Everyone in this city recognizes and accepts him, both when he is dressed as a fabulous woman and when he walks around as a less fabulous man.
3). Brazilians (such as my Afro-Brazilian wife) say that gays often have strong artistic and creative abilities, and gays are able to market their artistic services openly as gays. For example, the best known party decoration expert in the city where I live happens to be a gay man.
4). It is quite obvious that he is gay because of the clothes he wears and because he calls himself a "bicha" or "viado" which mean "queer."
5). The experience that prompts me to write about this is that yesterday a man (whom I did not know is gay) announced that he is when he told a heterosexual friend of mine that my friend is hot and he would like to get with my friend. In the United States, a gay coming on to a homosexual man could easily result in an angry confrontation and gay-bashing. Here it was just funny and everyone laughed.
6). When I was at an Internet cafe, a gay dance review promotor came in and asked the attendant to download photographs of him from one sight and upload them to another. In the photographs, he was seen sitting on the laps of other men and he told us proudly which of the men he had sexed. Once again, this is simply normal conversation in Brazil, received with the same equanimity as if he had said he had sex with a woman during his vacation.
He explained that he makes a nice living traveling around Brazil and producing gay events.
7). In Internet cafes, it is normal to see men looking with desire at photographs and descriptions of other men.
8). I have a good friend who is gay and who has told me that Brasilia is a great place for gays. He told me of a bar there that objected to gay people openly gathering there. As a result the capitol's gay community decided to go en masse to this restaurant, filling up the restaurant and the entire street in front of it, going in both directions. The owner capitulated and the restaurant continues to be a meeting place for gays.
9). A friend of mine's son recently told my wife that his son has come out to him as gay. The father told my wife that's it's not what he wanted, but it's something he has to accept. End of story.
10). One of the annual traditions here is for young high school graduates to dress up as women and walk around in public. I'm talking about heterosexuals now. The adolescent men dress up as women and the women dress up as men, and I have seen this annually for the last six years. It's a tradition.
11). The only organized group I am aware of that crusades against gay rights here is the Catholic Church.
12). Gay marriage can be the basis for immigration requests based on established gay coupleship, even though Brazil does not permit gay marriage. Brazil DOES permit gays to establish "stable unions" in the way that heterosexuals do.
No, not today. 17 Years ago yesterday, as commemorated by LGBT POV. Police wearing gloves -- to prevent them from catching AIDS -- arrested 27 protesters, including David Mixner, an anti-war and gav-rights activist and founder of ANGLE, and Miriam Ben Shalom, the first openly gay or lesbian service member to be discharged and then reinstated (in 1988, before DADT).
In my occasional discussions of being Bipolar II ½ (cyclothymic disorder), I discuss the limitations that come with this mental health condition. This past week I got to experience one type of the limitations.
So let me back up a couple of weeks or so. In recent weeks I've had what I'll label as "productive hypomania":
Hypomania represents the lesser degree of mania. Hypomania is characterized by cheerfulness, increased confidence, increased goal directed activity, decreased need for sleep, over-grooming, disinhibition, etc.
Through NetRoots Nation, I experienced that productive hypomania. The day after I returned home, I experienced what I'd label as significant "energy depression." In this past week I've had many of the physical symptoms of depression, such as being extremely tired (with lots of sleeping), and a kind of in a "brain fog" -- very hard to think clearly. I feel physically like I'm like I do when emotionally depressed, without actually being -- or feeling -- emotionally depressed. It's an odd state to be in, for sure. Fortunately I know from past experience that this kind of non-depression depression passes with time.
That said, I'm medically retired specifically because...well, sometimes the unproductive kind of hypomania (extreme restlessness, mind racing through thoughts, easy distractibility, and even pressured speech), as well as the different forms of depression I experience, leave me with with little ability to be productive. So physical depression, but not mental depression, left me unproductive this past week.
I appear to be coming out of my physical depression. This could just as easily be a small spike upwards; however, in a slower climb out of physical depression -- I just won't know until I'm all the way through this phase.
Anywho, I'm talking about my Bipolar II ½ condition because just like being out as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or transgender can be societally stigmatizing, so can having a mental illness be societally stigmatizing. I'm being out as Bipolar II ½ for pretty much the same reason I'm out as transgender -- being out changes the world.
(Note: I'm being good on vacation and trying not to file anything about news/politics.)
Regular patrons of the coffeehouse know that a couple of weeks ago I was in NYC to attend my first game at the new Yankee Stadium with my brother Tim. We hadn't been to a game in years decades, and it was Old Timers Day to boot. The weather was abominably hot but we enjoyed ourselves. :)
One of the other things that I did during that trip was have some photos taken for general purposes (like the Blend masthead), and for head shots or pix for print and web use.
I'm asked fairly often to supply hi-res shots, which I didn't have, so when my cousin Julie Atwell (see more of her work at her Facebook page), offered to do a package for me (along with photos of me w/Kate), as a birthday present, I couldn't turn that down.
We are from a large extended family, and we were born only a couple of months apart, and spent many summers in Hollis, Queens, NY, playing together with other cousins (the photo at left was from the mid-60s) -- sorry, cuz, that dates you!
You Pick 'em
I'm obviously nutty for putting these out on the web for commentary (since the haters will surely bring it on), but I thought Blenders could provide feedback about their favorites and why. Not all of them are head shot material of course, just fun shots. And trust me there are the rejects that will never see the light of day on the Intertubes.
So the day before the Yankee game, we headed over to Socrates Sculpture Park, in Long Island City (Queens) for the first set. It was extremely hot, but as we were near the East River, there was a little breeze, but honestly when it's 95 degrees, the hot air wasn't very refreshing. Anyway, since your blogmistress does not have stylists and makeup artists at her disposal, I decided to go nearly makeup-free to avoid a heat meltdown, only using brow pencil, some powder to hold back the shine, and lip gloss.
The slideshows have numbered captions, so you can easily refer to them that way.
We then trekked over to Brooklyn for lunch at the famous Junior's Restaurant, and Julie decided to take a few photos there at the spur of the moment - no fancy lighting or set up, just point and click stuff while I had some tea (of course you all can imagine that it's coffee, lol).
There is a special fun and joy in shooting pictures of someone you've known your whole life. There is a comfort and familiarity that makes for expressions that I think are difficult to capture otherwise. One of my goals is to make every subject I photograph feel like they've known me their whole lives so they can express themselves fully.
By the way, I just have to say that Pam and Kate are THE most loving and dedicated couple I have ever known. Their passion and admiration for each other are amazing and inspiring!
Once religious right groups find an item which can be used to demonize the lgbt community, they repeat this item ad naseum, even if they have to omit some crucial facts which could change the flow of what they are trying to push.
For example this quote by AIDS researcher Ronald Stall:
One of the nation’s leading AIDS researchers, Ronald Stall, has declared, “It may be a fallacy to say that HIV is the dominant, most dangerous and most damaging epidemic among gay men in the United States today. There are at least four other epidemics occurring among gay men that are intertwining and making each other worse. This is called a syndemic.” The “four other epidemics” are “substance abuse, partner violence, depression and childhood sexual abuse.”
That is how the Family Research Council spun the quote while using it to make the case against a repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
FRC also manipulated it to use against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) (item 7 with Peter Sprigg).
But like so many other things they use, the Family Research Council distorts the meaning of Stall's words.
The "DREAM Now Series: Letters to Barack Obama" is a social media campaign that launched Monday, July 19, to underscore the urgent need to pass the DREAM Act. The Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, S. 729, would help tens of thousands of young people, American in all but paperwork, to earn legal status, provided they graduate from U.S. high schools, have good moral character, and complete either two years of college or military service. With broader comprehensive immigration reform stuck in partisan gridlock, the time is now for the White House and Congress to step up and pass the DREAM Act!
Today marks the completion of the second week of the DREAM Now series. I am sorry I was not able to get a letter out on Wednesday. Too much travel and not enough sleep led me to come down with a soar throat and a fever on Tuesday. Thankfully, I'm starting to recover, today. If you're not getting enough of your DREAM Now fix I recommend reading Matias Ramos' post on why he stood up during Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-NV) speech at Netroots Nation.
And wingnut Gov. Jan Brewer is hopping mad. (via AZProgress)
Today in a simple two page ruling of appointed Gov. Brewer's request for an expedited hearing on this week's lower court gutting of SB 1070, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled, "To the extent that appellants seek to expedite the appeal beyond the provisions of Ninth Circuit Rule 3-3(b), appellants' motion is denied." The Court further ordered, "The Clerk shall calendar this case during the week of November 1, 2010 in San Francisco, California."
In what can only be seen as yet another political maneuver appointed Gov. Jan Brewer today reacted to the Appellate Court's decision by threatening a special session to "fix" SB 1070.
This tactic is yet another political ploy. SB 1070 created a smoke screen for the accidental governor masking Brewer's complete void of any vision for creating jobs, improving tourism and housing markets and upgrading Arizona's education system.
Brewer is riding a slippery slope on one ski - SB 1070. She has failed to notice that the ground is softening under her and that her "single issue" agenda is not going to carry her through the General Election.
the British Telegraph newspaper is 
Almost.
The Advocate: A growing number of people have started to call on the administration not to defend what the president refers to as the "so-called" Defense of Marriage Act - including Steve Hildebrand last week and the Human Rights Campaign, which is the largest LGBT community lobby and, quite frankly, it's usually fairly favorable toward the administration, so it was a turnaround for them to call on the administration not to defend that law.
Well, I'm a little dense.
I discuss the limitations that come with this mental health condition. This past week I got to experience one type of the limitations.
Regular patrons of the coffeehouse know that a couple of weeks ago I was in NYC to attend my first game at the new Yankee Stadium with my brother Tim. We hadn't been to a game in 
I'm asked fairly often to supply hi-res shots, which I didn't have, so when my cousin 
There is a special fun and joy in shooting pictures of someone you've known your whole life. There is a comfort and familiarity that makes for expressions that I think are difficult to capture otherwise. One of my goals is to make every subject I photograph feel like they've known me their whole lives so they can express themselves fully.
